James Bacon Editors Chris Garcia [email protected] The Drink Tank Issue 283 - May 2011 James Bacon & Chris Garcia - Editors

Page 1 - Table of Contents Page 10 - Railway Modelling by 1/2 Cruttenden Photo by Howeird Art by Roy D. Pounds II “Sorry, no can do. I’m not a modeller.” Page 2 - Editorial by Christopher J Garcia Art by Roy D. Pounds II Page 12 - The Oddness of Ireland - Model Trains “Of course, the trains were the cheapest ones ever by James Bacon made.” “The Slainte Express is especially sickening.”

Page 3 - The Day At The Depot by James Bacon Page 14 - The MIT Tech Model Rail Road Club Photos by James Bacon by Christopher J Garcia “It is an interesting subject, crashing two of my “You don’t have to be an engineer to be into model personal favourites together...” trains, but the paycheck helps!”

Page 6 - Railway Connections Page 19 - All Aboard by Fred Lerner by Alastair Reynolds Art by Roy D. Pounds Photos by Alastair Reynolds “Another bucolic land needing improved transportation is “My first love is the Great Western Railway.” Islandia.”

Page 8 - Confusing the Real and The Simulated for Fun and Profit by Moshe Feder “..they can be mistaken for the real things...”

Comments? [email protected] I had a train set when I was a kid. 1860 Briar- Of course, the trains were the cheapest ones wood Dr.’s garage was famous in the neighborhood for ever made. the train set. It was a piece of plywood on top of two I swear they were made from former plastic saw-horses. Dad made it himself. I should have known milkjugs. They were cheap, something like 3 dollars a that something was up when four year old Chris wasn’t car, and they were all-plastic. You could only run the allowed in the garage for a month. The garage was my engine for a few minutes before you had to stop and favorite place other than the toybox where I’d throw let it cool or little whisps of acrid black smoke would out all my toys and climb in with all my blankets. The ga- come off of it. It was a piece of crap, but it was mine. rage was transformed, a car never again parking inside. Well, it was actually Dad’s, but I got to play with The reason it was famous? It was almost all pa- it. per. I lost interest when I got into baseball and roll- Dad, ever a DIY man, made the buildings from er skates and books and my Fisher-Price tape recorder. heavy, folded paper. He’d take them from work and I would go in and play with the set-up once in a while, come home and do his version of origami. It was the but it never held the sway again. We moved from 1860 kind of origami done with scissors and tape. He’d draw Briarwood in 1987, a full 9 years after Dad made it, and out buildings and then cut them up, fold them into we never took it down. It wasn’t until we moved to a shape, install them This allowed him to make hundreds smaller apartment that the set-up was tossed, the cars of different buildings. Sometimes, he’d improvise, like and engine along with it, the paper buildings crumbled taking the Quaker Oats tube and turning it into a grain up and binned. silo, or the time he turned a mini cereal box into a sort This issue is about model trains, one of those of Arc de Triumph for the layout. In the three years that things that a lot of us have in common. We loved them I was interested in it, there were hundreds of different once, some of us forever, and we all have stories about buildings, that we’d cycle in and out. Dad even made a them. three story firehouse that was a near-exact duplicate And these are ours... of the one that he worked at! The Day At The Depot by James Bacon

It’s a wet and dreary Sunday morning, I feel a is their overstock storage space and its pretty awe- mild fug upon myself as I awaken, I throw down two some, and brilliant, that well, people like me, twice a paracetamol and following a shower and Coffee I am year get to look into the store room, and see all the alive. cool things. Strangely I As I walked question whether I up the sloped road am mad or just mad. to the Depot, an old I am up a little ear- Routemaster bus, lier than expected, which was running I have had a good a shuttle drive past, eight hours sleep, but and made for the de- I fell into bed at 2am pot itself. The smell of following a long but smoke was in the air, not arduous shift. In- and the Acton Min- stead of lounging or iature railway had a relaxing I am prompt 4-4-0 London Under- about my move- ground Metropoli- ments. I start work tan Steam train, on today at 4pm. 16 oh a 71⁄4” gauge track, something to be ex- drawing two carriag- act, but shift working es with children atop is odd like this, so although I don’t have an evening like it, puffing away from a covered space, which was the a nine to fiver this morning I have a few hours, and my station in this narrow gauge world. It is a beautiful en- intent is clear. gine, visiting the AMR which has a permanent line laid It is a very short drive from Uxbridge where out in the grounds of the Museum. I am currently staying to Acton. Acton is one of those The metropolitan railway are one of the most west London boroughs that has a lot of railway stations interesting metro railways, having a freight operation - tube stations - and a pretty serous depot I supposed at one stage as well as going some distance out of the the land was available. city. East Acton north Acton and West Acton are all This year, I was focussed on the model rail- on the central line - East acton is a eight minute walk to ways which use London Underground as their focus. my work at old oak common, Acton central and Acton Although there was once a London Underground train south are on the London overground. Acton Town is set from Ever Ready, it seems to be a railway that has on the Piccadilly and district line, while Acton Mainline not had much popularity, as some companies, in the is on the Great Western Mainline and I pass through it modelling world. Perhaps its the unusual setting or the when I drive my train. difficult in modelling it, but this means that there are a I drove down to Acton Town, where there are more select bunch who go out and model these trains, a number of major train depots, one of which is a de- and also the art of necessity bringing on invention is pot especially for the London Transport Museum. This quite fervent. ERTL make diescast model Underground trains ally a manufacturer of model trains. I got chatting with as static displays, and these form the basis of many a one of the men, he explained that they design and model, as they are relatively easy to modify to run on manufacture ready to run ‘00’ scale etched brass mod- regular HO track. els of tube trains as well as stocking the EFE tube which It also has created what could be considered a can be purchased as static displays or with motors fit- Cottage Industry, Metro Models which have the won- ted. der ‘Abbey Rd’ model, which brilliantly demonstrates The owner John Polley faced many difficulties the different type of stock on the Underground as well building and running his first model, and from this his as featuring part of the station – sub-surface- are actu- company was born and now today they have a factory workshop operation in Sri Lanka. The variety of trains that this model had, the modern and old Tube and Sub-surface stock, the per- manent way machines, the Isle of Wight liveried stock, it’s wonderful, and the greatest advertisement for not only having a model, which is fairly unique, but also for the will power of people who enjoy the hobby. On then to London Rd., another timeless set- ting to allow a number of workings to pass through. This model is some 30 years old, but like many things has been renewed, with points and signalling being up- graded. I especially like the North London line workings. Again a whole fleet of different trains are on hand. I walk around the museum, which I love, mostly for its rawness and the fact that it’s a working museum, where not only can you get close to things but get in and look around. And then I see that as if in some sort of crazy synchronicity, the greatest London Transport ‘what if’ is sitting there with a south Croydon destina- tion blind on it. The rear engine Routemaster. It may look like similar buses of the rear engine period, but this one is fairly special, it was the failed attempt at common sense. Routemasters, out lived many hundreds of the initial rear engine successors, and the work load and time associated with the rear engine buses took the bus industry London Transport by surprise. Cost- ing a whole lot more than expected. Here Robert Cog- ger explains; ‘The only thing I would say is that it wasn’t re- ally ‘the industry’ that was surprised. It was just London Transport, where the standard rear engined models did not easily fit with its overhaul/refurbishment practise of literally pulling buses apart and putting them back together again. The rest of the industry got on with them just fine. Which is why they were very keen to buy them all up when London Transport started sell- ing the earlier models off at a ridiculously early age. It was basically the inflexibility of London Transport to adapt quickly that was the problem, and why, ultimately, Routemasters lasted so long.’ ‘The way Routemasters (and RTs etc.) were overhauled was fascinating. As for Vendetta Tube for an Easter- a bus drove in one end of the con item, and I hold him in the works the registration plates highest regard, a very gentle and and tax disc would be taken courteous man, with an obvious off and put straight on another eye for civil engineering. completely different bus that There were a number of was coming off the other end people selling wares, a man build- of the overhaul line. How they ing tube stock and a few selling got away with it for so long tube stock, Radley models being I’m not quite sure as it should another notable enterprise that really have been quite illegal! caught my eye. When being overhauled the I then went to one of the body and the running units talks, that was planned for the would be split up and then day, Christian Wolmar, a journal- at the end of the process put ist and author was on hand to back together again, but only talk about his latest book En- very rarely did the body end gines of War How wars were up on the same chassis. The won and lost on the railways. He completed bus would then was later giving another talk, but just be given the number of I had to go to work, so I decided the next one entering the that this was the one for me, and works and the paperwork it was a brilliant talk, essentially swapped as described. That’s giving the crowded room a his- why if you look at Routemas- torical overview of the impor- ters at rallies they often have a tance and indeed brutality that detailed list showing what dif- connects the railways with war- ferent fleet numbers the body fare in the 19th and 20th cen- has been associated with over tury. the years!’ It is an interesting sub- Not exactly what one ject, crashing two of my per- would expect when it comes sonal favourites together, and al- to maintenance, but sure though I admit I am researching there you go! armoured trains, in various guis- I then came across es in Ireland during the Civil war, David Tabners London Un- it is something that needs more derground model, made out writing about. Christian seems of Lego. This is some con- to have that open eye awareness struction and grows in size that he brings to a subject that with each viewing, this time it a journalist can capture where- seems to have gotten higher as an expert may lose track of as some of the buildings in- the importance of history being crease in stature, while he has somewhat entertaining as well added new trains, both new as enlightening. to the service and also old trains that are new to the I of course was sold and bought the book. model. This is always hugely interesting to children, not As time marched on, I watched the model tram that all models are not, but because they all have Lego, carrying people, with a real electric five foot overhead and it’s a realisation of what is possible, anyone can line equipment, and departed for my own machinery, build Lego... less delightful but equally as enjoyable for me at least. The trains run around this layout really smartly, and David is on hand, and I great him, he built us a V Railway Connections by Alastair Reynolds

I’ve always liked trains, and I’ve always been to another country, got a job, and was happily settled aware that railways have a history. I was born in Barry, down with my wife to be. Before very long, I was hatch- home to the famous Woodham’s scrapyard, where hun- ing tentative plans to bring my old trainset out of stor- dreds of redundant steam locomotives were gathered age and resurrect it in Holland. I was allocated a spare to be cut up. My family also had modest railway con- bedroom and told to get on with it. I started off by nections – my father was a civil engineer, and in the swearing I’d work to a strict budget, only using second- sixties worked on the demolition of Crumlin viaduct hand items wherever possible, and that I’d confine my in South Wales. My great grandfather was a porter on activities to a couple of hours each weekend. It didn’t the Somerset and Dorset railway, which closed six days quite work out that way, though. before I was born. Most modellers have what I’d call a core interest, with a few branches. My first love is the Great Western “You know, if they didn’t have the Railway. While you can get some fantastic models off the shelf, I really enjoy building and painting things my- model train, they wouldn’t have self, and luckily there is a vast range of resin, plastic and gotten the idea for the big trains.” metal kits available. Here’s a picture of City of Truro From Christopher Guest’s A Might Wind (fig 1), which I built a few years ago. It’s a mix of metal and plastic parts, actually based around an old static kit My father also had a small trainset. It con- which was once part of the Airfix range. The model has sisted of an oval of grey track, a temperamental black a working chassis and some fine details provided by Tri-ang “Princess Elizabeth” locomotive, and a few red etched brass and cast parts. I’ve a particular affinity for and cream coaches. I remember sitting in a high chair, this loco since I used to live in Truro. watching the engine whizz around its loop. Later, my father laid some track onto a permanent board, and I had my first model railway. It was a pair of circuits on an 8’ x 4’ board, on which we operated a variety of elderly and second-hand models. I used to enjoy po- sitioning the cardboard buildings made by my mother, making up little villages and arranging the plastic trees and bushes into a semblance of woods and hedgerows. I kept this layout right into my early teens, and it gave me tremendous enjoyment. In 1980 we dismantled it I also like making buildings, and where possible I � and built a slightly larger and more realistic effort in a 6’ try to make them completely from scratch, using card, x 8’ garden shed. I was able to pop up into the middle plastic and a variety of embossed sheets to represent like a meerkat. My father and I developed it to a rea- bricks, slates and so on. It’s therapeutic to start with sonable degree before it had to be dismantled and put an expanse of flat cardboard (I use old office calendars into storage. I wasn’t too downhearted, since by then printed onto thick stock) and after a few hours end I was more interested in spending my pocket money up with something that looks vaguely like a building. on more mainstream activities such as prog rock and Sometimes I follow a scale plan, at other times I let my Larry Niven. That was pretty much it for me and trains imagination rip. This model (fig 2) is one I’m working for the next fifteen years. on, and is almost entirely plastic; it’s intended to be a By the mid nineties I’d got an education, moved Welsh nonconformist chapel. There’s been some de- line, although with some inevitable compromises ow- ing to space constraints. Although the S&D was ripped up years ago, some of the buildings remain and there are many reference books and photo albums. I support two of the main S&D societies, one working at Mid- somer Norton and the other at Shillingstone, which is the focus of my model. This picture shows a small cameo scene of a brook, crossed by a single track rail- way line. The engine is a Hornby 2P 4-4-0, renumbered to match one of the actual locos that ran on the S&D.

bate about whether the entrance is too ornate, so it � may be replaced by something plainer. The model will eventually find a new home on a small portable GWR terminus that I’m in the process of making.

I don’t think it’s any great secret that railway modelling – indeed, having any interest in trains – is not seen as particularly cool by society large. Frankly, though, I couldn’t give a toss. I have great fun with it, it’s a kind of 3-dimensional artform, and it embraces a myriad of disciplines, from carpentry to electrical skills to choosing the right shade of grass for a particular time of year. I have met some great friends through my interest in railways, from a variety of backgrounds, none of whom fit the media stereotype of the socially awk- ward anorak trainspotter. Agreed, trains attract certain One of the branches off my core interest Amer- personality types – but I’ve also met these people in ican railroading. My British stuff is built to 00, 1/76th fandom, birdwatching and music circles. Maybe I’m one scale. My American stuff is N, which is 1/160th scale, so as well, who knows? about half as large. I started building a small modular Ultimately, there’d be no point in hiding my in- layout about ten years ago, set somewhere in the south terest in railways – it’s obvious to anyone who visits eastern United States. Somewhat enlarged, it now curls our home (we live next to a former GWR branch line, around the walls of a spare bedroom. I like kicking back strangely enough), and the presence of a few prints in and watching long trains circulate slowly around the the hall coaxes a surprising number of enthusiasts out loop, usually with a glass of whisky and some good of the closet. I’ve even published a couple of articles in music on the CD player. The picture (fig 3) shows a the model railway press, under my own name. quarter of Southern locomotives passing through an It’s a useful interest, too. Just recently I’ve re- industrial area. stored a damaged bookcase, soldered a faulty electri- The American layout is fixed off metal brack- cal connection in a wildlife camera, and dismantled and ets at about chest height. I’m also building another lay- repaired a toaster, where the sprung-loaded tabs were out in the same room, but bracketed at eye-level. This not making good contact with the electromagnet that one is supposed to be a representation of part of the keeps the bread from popping up until it’s ready. Now Somerset and Dorset in the nineteen fifties, and will tell me that repairing a toaster isn’t one of life’s truly include an interpretation of one of the stations on the essential skills. Confusing the Real and the Simulated for Fun and Profit by Moshe Feder

For a certain kind of modeler, one of the goals of model railroading is to build scale models so detailed and realistic they can be mistaken for the real thing when photographed correctly. But it’s also possible to photograph real things so that they look like models! The technique is called tilt-shift photography. Here are three examples:

London, outside Waterloo.

The turbine houses at the foot of Ca- ban Coch dam, Elan Valley, Wales.

Tram at Central in Hong Kong. You’ll find many more examples, not all as good, but some quite amazing, in a set of 100 at http://www. instantshift.com/2009/11/13/100-examples-of-brilliant-tilt-shift-photography/ It used to be that you needed a special kind of lens to do this, but now the effect can be simulated quite readily in Photoshop. Check out this before/after pair:

There’s even a website -- I haven’t tried it yet -- that helps you do it online: http://tiltshiftmaker.com/photo-editing.php Have fun! Moshe The point is not to recre- ate the actual world, but to create a re- alistic world where you just happen to be God.

Chris Garcia Real or Simulated? Railway Modelling by 1/2 Cruttenden

James asks for an article on the above. Sorry, no pete with Triang and the now imported continental and can do. I’m not a modeller. I know this rather well, hav- far eastern makers. This meant that new locomotives ing been told so - often - by very many of that breed. were offered in both 2- and 3-rail and that the wheels What I do do is play with toy trains, ( they say THAT for coaches and wagons were plastic, replacing the old with a scarcely suppressed sneer ) and they won’t even uninsulated metal ones, thus enabling them to run on dignify it with capitalization. either system. HD was made until 1964, when the com- In fact I collect and run Hornby Dublo ( HD ), pany was sold to Lines Bros., so anything you see that the system introduced by Meccano in 1938 as a com- is labelled Hornby – rather than Hornby Dublo - is in panion to their existing O gauge, 7mm to the foot scale fact Triang, and thus to be shunned. trains. Advertised as a table top railway, like O gauge Sneered at or no, we still exist, and many of us it was then offered with either clockwork or electric are actively engaged in collecting, restoring and running motors. It’s 4mm to the foot, runs on 16.5mm track these objects of veneration on layouts at exhibitions and after WW2 was only electrically propelled. Mine so that others can see what many modellers started are 3-rail, meaning that the power for the motor is with. If I had a pound for each time someone has told picked up from the centre rail and returns through the a child – or grand-child “That’s what I started with”, I’d two running rails, unlike Trix Twin, where power is sup- be able to afford to add quite a few more items to my plied by two controllers, each feeding one running rail, stock! Or buy reproduction parts to keep what I have so that two trains could run on the same track, the lo- running. Some modellers are now producing copies cos being set up to pick up power from one rail or the of locos, carriages, wagons and components originally other, with the centre rail as the common return. In the produced by Meccano, or even “Neverwazzas”, items mid- fifties HD introduced a new 2-rail system to com- designed by the company but never put into produc- tion, or never produced in OO gauge. We now have a thriving society, the Hornby Railway Col- lectors Association, dedicated to our part of the hobby, cater- ing to both O and OO gauges, with thousands of members in the UK and branch societies in other countries. Our club, de Havilland Model Railway Society, has a 12’ by 6’6” oval layout with a sta- tion, goods yard, engine shed and sidings which we run in three phases to show how HD developed during its 26 year life. We start with the earliest stock we own, pre- and immediately post-war tinplate, then change to British Railways, but still tin- plate and end the show with the super detail plastic carriages and wagons. When we change peri- od we also swop wooden for cast metal then finally, plastic buildings. As you can probably imagine, this involves a certain amount of frantic thrashing around every two hours or so as we change everything on the layout. It’s best, we find, if we keep two trains run- ning round the oval circuit as we do this, so that there is something moving all the time. As far as we know, ours is the only layout to do this since it means we have to take much more stock to a show than a club with a fixed period layout needs for its display. When we took it on its first outing the exhibition manager will endeavour to sell. That previously mentioned loco came round on the Saturday morning and said “Oh of mine cost me £4.8s0d when I bought it new. In an dear, I think I may have under insured you”. “How HRCA auction in January, 2011 one was sold for £420, much?” “£800” So I picked up one loco and tender and since it is much the rarer of the two 3-rail Castles. my friend did the same, “That’s £800. You’ve asked us Either way, since the collectors usually have to come back next year. Make it £20K. We won’t bring deeper pockets than the runners, we lose out. Even all our stock”. This layout had finally come about after reproduction items, when offered in an auction, cost some thirty years of agitating by me when another HD more than they did when first made. So we are re- enthusiast joined us. During this period I had had to put duced to rummaging in boxes of odds & sods on the up with much denigratory talk by other club members, floor under dealers’ tables at swop meets, or, at HRCA “Toy trains – hah – why not grow up and start model- auctions, desperately bidding for what are described as ling?” However we got the baseboards built, designed “playworn”– knackered – items, with a view to rebuild- the layout and screwed down the track. This was when ing and repainting them to provide variety in our display. it became interesting. This can also cause great amusement for the operators, As circuit testing commenced and locos began listening to an “expert” expound on this rarely seen to run round, suddenly additional ones appeared. “I Binns Road product, knowing that it’s a one-off made found this in the loft/stock cupboard/old box. “Don’t from the chassis of one, the motor of a second and the know if it’ll run.” After cleaning and oiling – it usually body casting of a third that has been stripped back to did. Slowly at first, but eventually quite well. Strange to bare metal, then sprayed with aerosol car paint and had relate – most of these came from the “serious” mod- new lining, numbers and emblem transfers added by ellers. Needless to say, comments were made! One the man or woman standing next to you! of the biggest snags with our layout is the age of our So there you have it. An article – but not on stock; the newest item is 46 years old, and Dublo is railway modelling! I hope, nonetheless, that is of inter- now viewed as “collectible”. Thus, when we want to est to you, and to some people, such as Greg Pickers- add additional items to our display, either a “new” loco, gill, a reminder of what they once owned. If anyone out wagon, carriage or just another example of an existing there has any HD tucked away that they want to dis- item, we have to compete with those who intend to pose of – but NOT at collectors’ prices – I’d be VERY either put it in a display cabinet in a museum, accept- interested. able since people can at least see it, or store it care- fully until it “appreciates in value”, at which time they The Oddness of Ireland - Model Trains by James Bacon

As an adult I understand the concept of the wore out. It’s strange, in the late seventies everything Market, just about. Things will only be brought to Mar- like toys were shockingly expensive. One of dads trains ket that have enough demand to warrant supply. Some- was just too old to repair as it was so costly, the idea times just cause I want something, is not actually suf- of buying a new one, beyond us. It’s strange is it ebay or ficient demand! just car boot sales, but I can pick up trains real cheap Right now, there are a number of books by Dar- now. wyn Cooke and Brendan McCarthy and Grant Morri- Then our neighbour Ms Mooney moved away. son that I would love, but for whatever reason, despite A Shame and a boon. She was lovely and kind, but Mick a perception of demand (sorry forty bleating bleeters Cagney who moved in at 4 or 5 now some 30 years on a forum is not a demand nor indicative that ‘out later is there on my facebook. He was excellent friends there’ there is s demand. ) it’s just not economical to with myself and brothers, loving scouts and going on to manufacture or print these books. live that outdoor lifestyle. There are niches. A lovely word. And some peo- But Ms Mooney gave us her son, Sams - a pal of ple and businesses will see and try to capitalise on a my das - train set. Now this was different. It didn’t work niche. at all. But that was ok we were entertained. He had a As a child, it was hard to understand the Mar- massive steam engine but it was different as it had elec- ket. Of course the realisation that you are a ‘consumer’ and to a degree as disposable as the consumables you purchase to those who create products is a harsh night- mare that children should leave alone. Easier to blame the overall situation. Jesus I am thinking too much these days - or not enough. So, as a child in Ireland, it was a fact of life that if you wanted a model train, it would be Hornby or Lima and it would more than likely be British engines, rolling stock and liveries, running around at high speed. Train sets. Such joyous things. The tingly elec- tric in the air, gently brushing your senses, smell and even taste of copper, the noise of small pieces of metal whirring away, wheels in motion beating out a tempo and going round and round, a soothing sensation. My father had Hornby Dublo and Hornby Tri- ang sets. We sort of inherited them. It worked well. He had a DMU and couple of BR steam trains. Lots and lots of rolling stock, including some unusual American carriages and a wide variety of buildings. We were a bit too young for it tbh and it was a bit too old. Some carriages even though pristine in their boxes had warped and bent. Popping their roofs. Annoying for my father who obviously thought they were mint. But we played. It was fun. But the engines trical pick ups underneath. The track instead of two metal rails on plastic sleepers, it was three metal rails on a metal base with painted sleepers. At one stage I hung out with a young fellow, I musta been 7, his name was Robert Kinehan, and his father owned a post office and model shop, with a couple of model railway items. At some stage, it en- tered my consciousness that there was some sort of model of Irish Trains, then a distinctive Tan Or- ange and Black. Now I can go back with the power of the internet and confirm my brain was not play- ing tricks. the Western Express which included a train wash (5020) and another with a car transporter and loader. There was also an ‘Emergency Service’ set which along “When I was a kid, with the loco included five various wagons, a brake van and a lovely breakdown crane. I went to the store Another set from Lima was the Old Irish Main- line set, with three Mark I corridor coaches in CIE and asked the guy, ‘Do Green with the Flying snail Logo, hauled by a 0-6-0 ten- der engine. This engine appears to be an LMS Fowler you have any toy train Class 4F but in fairness here to Lima, there were many similar classes in Ireland although internally differing, schedules?’” they the train could easily pass for a Class J15, J4 or J9. Stephen Wright Many items were also available and Lima cre- ated supplemental catalogues especially for Ireland, a IN 1974, CIE named some of its trains ‘super- bogied Sundries Wagon as well as other items available trains’ this meant they were super, and I suppose in a in the sets, sold individually. sense they were alright, but it was an odd title. Lima, Hornby had two Irish sets in the late seventies. an Italian company produced a set all in Irish Orange The Slainte Express is especially sickening. Two smiling and Black, with a loco and three carriages(5516) . The young children, in Emerald Green Shirts, with bright locomotive wasn’t prototypical to Ireland but rather a red hair and smiles that would make a man violent, grin class 33 from the UK, with Mark II carriages. In fairness of all the en- gines that could have been used the class 33 was probably closest to the Irish Class C Metro Vick Bo-Bo. This was quite a seriously cool set. It was about £15 in 1979, which was a huge amount. Lima did a va- riety of sets using this stock, one with three Mark 1 carriage in the older black and orange livery and one called out mockingly, in utter happiness. I can hear the fuck- closing down with the collapse of the parent company. ing didley di music. Of course, true to form, the engine In more recent times, the mid ninties Lima re- is of a type never used by CIE, it is a British Rail Class released the Class 33 and also produced the first ever 35, known as a Hymek, a bastardisation of the type of ready to run diesel loco actually based on Irish pro- traction it was, Mekydro-design hydraulic transmission. totype, the Class 201, with Murphy Models, they re- Built especially for the Western Region as part of the leased the Cl33 and also produced some nice Mark III modernisation drive to replace steam with diesel trains, carriages in sets, and this seemed to be an opening of they were good engines but lasted about 17 years in flood gates of a sort. regular use, and of course never were anywhere near Bachman released an Irish Railway Train set Ireland. The carriages are two Mark 2’s and in fairness, containing 2-6-0 Woolwhich Mogul Class Loco, based Ireland has Mark 2 coaches. on the British N Class released in the UK with three Hornby also produced a cthe CIE Local Goods. green liveried Passenger Coaches a 1st/3rd, all 3rd and This had a 0-4-0 Tank Engine, a generic type, and not at Brake/3rd . Bachman also released a Northern Coun- all specific to Ireland, with the flying snail logo on it. It ties Committee Jinty, two of which were bought by the was in fairness accompanied by an Irish plank wagon NCC in reality and subsequently have released quite a with CIE logo, a refrigerator van with a CIE logo, a Sligo, few carriages and within the last year have released a Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway wagon and a wonderful GM class 141/181 in almost every version of Shell, or other Tanker wagon. the livery possible. Sometime later Hornby redid a similar set en- Silver Fox make Class A and C diesel locomo- titled Irish Freight, with the same Loco, a Kilkenny coal tives as well as unusual carriages, such as the Dutch truck, a Burmah Tanker, and a Wagon with a small CIE Brake van. So now there is a profusion of model trains, logo. although at nearly £100 for a locomotive, the most Joeuf, the French maker also released two sets recent addition, which is a Bachman class 2700 diesel in 1980, they decided that they would open a factory in electrical two car unit, on its own or in a set and its Shannon, under an assumed name and so French made pretty smashing is perhaps a taste of more goodness to parts were shipped over and assembled and packaged come. here. There were two sets, one included a shunter based on a SNCF Y5110 and the other an engine based Further Reading: on a DB Class E139, while later another Locomotive, www.murphymodels.com based on another Deutche Bahn model was released. www.silverfoxmodels.co.uk The carriages were also quite pointedly European in http://homepage.eircom.net/~studioscale/index.html style and they didn’t sell well, the factory eventually provincialwagons .com The MIT Tech Model Railroad Club by Christopher J Garcia

There are ties, it’s said, between the worlds in Building 20, was meant to be torn down immediately which we want to live and the world in which we ac- after the war, but for some reason, it didn’t happen. In tually live. Few places are more the world we actually 1946, a few students began a club, a fine upsyanding- live in than MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- type club dedicated to model trains. The club, called the ogy, where for more than 150 years folks have been Tech Model Rail Road Club, was located in Building 20, studying to take all forms of technology to their limits. the Plywood Palace, some called it. The group did their It’s developed the fields of Artificial Intelligence, was set-up in the building and it became a popular club for a significant player in the development of computers, the geeks of technology. various bombs used in various wars, and even in the The layout was pretty simple. These were tech- world of computer graphics. It’s a Mecca for the tech- nologists, so the scenery was pretty simple. The build- minded. ings weren’t flashy, there was little attempt to recre- It’s also one of the most stress-filled locations ate actual places. There were three sort of teams, one on Earth. dedicated itself to modeling the trains of that they had There is a long history at MIT of Hacks, pranks co0nnections with, another to make the trains run on designed to make one go “Wow, they really did that?”. a schedule, and those that were a part of the ‘Signals & These have included things like getting the scoreboards Power Subcommittee’. These guys were the ones who at various sporting events to flash witty saying, assem- seems to dominate, as they were the kind of guys who bling a Volkswagen on the roof of one of their most wanted to get into the nuts and volts, make the thing iconic domed roofs, and my personal favorite, mea- run on their circuits. These were the gearheads and suring out the Mass Ave. bridge by laying one of their they were an important part of things to come. students end-to-end. It’s the little things, really. MIT is The group had many ties to fandom, the first a place where they work hard and they play hard. It being that many, if not most, of the members were shouldn’t be a surprise that one of the most significant readers and viewers of Science Fiction. There’s a sto- Model Railroad Clubs is located on the campus. Because what’s more the world we’d want to live in than those we build as a part of model railroading? The MIT Tech Model Railroad Club was started in 1946. MIT had ballooned during WWII to deal with the added responsibilities its re- searchers were under- going, including RADAR work. One such building, ry of Doc Smith coming to visit the TMRRC’s layout. ness and didn’t actually see the machine. This gave a They used a form of Robert’s Rules of Order to run number of significant members of the computing world the meetings. The main guy who was a rules hacker, as their first taste of working on an actual computer. A it were, was Peter Sampson. This didn’t make a lot of flavor of TX-0mania ran through the club, which made the folks happy, including a motion saying “we frown on those that were far more into the trains than the tech- certain members, who would do the club a lot more nology surrounding the layouts very nervous. good by doing more S&Ping and less reading Roberts Greenblatt was an important figure as well, spe- Rules of Order.” cifically when he started working with another former There was also the question of the personal TMRRCer John McCarthy aka The Father of Artificial hygiene of many of the Hackers who were members Intelligence, at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. His of the TMRRC. Richard Greenblatt, a future significant work on the PDP-6 was legendary and a founding for player in Computer Chess among other things, was much of the Computer Science work for the next de- noted for his ripeness. cade. The group also had very liberal policies when it came Another Model Railroad Club member was to access. After you spent forty hours working on the the aforementioned Peter Sampson. He would get up- layout, you got your own key. There was a distrust of close-and-personal with the PDP-1 and would be re- rules and regulations, despite using Robert’s rules to sponsible for many innovations, including programming run certain meetings, and there was a sort of meritocracy. The more you did for the layout, the more you got to do. They also bought their own Coke machine. No one did that back in those days! The layout was somewhat simple, but the control and switch- ing apparatus were amazing. The early advisor was Carlton Tucker, who taught telephony and had lots of contacts in the field. He got them Bell-quality switches and relays that allowed them to build hugely com- plicated and impressive switching banks. The legend goes that when it was first built, System 2 to con- trol the train layout was much more complex than the system that actu- ally ran the phones at MIT! The early members of the club included some very significant names in the history of computers. One was Jack Dennis. He came to MIT in 1949 and was an influential member of the group both as a member and later as an advisor. He was put in charge of the TX-0 and PDP-1 computers, which he gave certain members of the club access to. That was a big deal as there were a lot of folks who were in the busi- music for it. When the Computer History Museum got mythical hack that supposedly took place in the 1990s, our PDP-1 up-and-running, Peter was one of the key is that you can play a version of Tetris using the lights of components of the team and leads the annual Christ- the building. It rules. mas Caroling at the museum with the folks standing MIT’s Tech Model Rail Road Club has remained around accompanying the PDP-1. He also helped out strong all these years. Many of the members of the club with programming SpaceWar!, the most important of have gone on to do great things in tech, with Digital the early computer games. Sampson wrote the pro- Equipment Corporation getting a lot of their top guys gram Expensive Planetarium, the portion of the Space- who happen to be former TTMRRC members. It’s im- War! program that made sure that the star patern in pressive the track record. Even better than the MIT the background was correct for various positions of Science Fiction Society! space. So, more than 60 yuears on and many of the So many of the most important figures who legends of Computing have gone through the club. passed through the Tech Model Railroad Club that con- The connection between modelling and technology is nection were made that often lead to long-time asso- strong. As a friend of mine said once, “You don’t have ciations. This strengthened the Tech Model Rail Road to be an engineer to be into model trains, but the pay- Clubs cache. Along with guys like Greenblatt, McCarthy, check helps!” Dennis, Sampson and Digital Equipment Corporation legend Alan Kotok, LISP pioneer Peter Deutsch, and so many other engineers that to write about would require me doing some research. A lot of folks point out the connection between the ways of the Tech Model Rail Road Club and the way of the Programmer. Long hours, the concept of the meritocracy, always trying to figure out new techniques, the lack of ‘prettiness’ to their works and the reading of science fiction. OK, I might have tacked that last one on, but there is a lot of cross-over be- tween SF Readers and Hacker types. In 1996, after a few decades of ‘We’re thinkin’ about tearin’ down Building 20’ MIT officially announced that they were actually tearing down Building 20. That meant that the lay- out that had been in existence for fifty years was gonna have to move. That proved almost impossible, though they did manage to move that mas- sive switching unit. They installed it in a new building and started rebuilding the layout. It was a massive undertak- ing, though it did allow for a new ver- sion of MIT’s most Brutalist piece of architecture, the Green Building, which they recreated at HO scale. That’s the most impressive building on the layout, but the coolest part, a reference to a

All Aboard! by Fred Lerner

I’ve long been a vicarious model railroader. I’d not be surprised to see a few rusting away amid the When I was a boy I had a small, crude HO-scale layout slag-heaps of Mordor), but rather friendly little puffer- in my parents’ basement. It’s been decades since I’ve bellies—would be just the thing to link Hobbiton with had anything to do with model trains. Still, I rarely pass Bree, or to start folk on their journey down the Gre- a hobby shop without spending a few minutes looking enway to Gondor. over its wares. I’ve told myself that the last thing I need is another indoor hobby: if I need to create a model environment, I should do so outdoors, with tulip bulbs and ornamental shrubbery. But I’m not entirely sure “I didn’t get a toy train that I’ve convinced myself. I’ve met modellers who have taken their proto- like the other kids. I got types from the railscape of Vermont. The covered bridge a toy subway instead. You on the Lamoille Valley line, the circus trains that once visited Montpelier, the bustling railway-yards of White couldn’t see anything, River Junction—there’s a lot of Vermont’s railroad his- tory that’s worth modelling. And not just its past: that but every now and then covered bridge up in Wolcott is still in use, the only covered span on any American railroad; and a beautiful you’d hear this rumbling miniature steam locomotive still serves as weathervane on the White River depot. I’ve often thought that a di- orama of Vermont railroading, past and present, would noise go by.” make an exciting exhibit; I once suggested the idea to the people at the Historical Society museum in Mont- Stephen Wright pelier. But I’d take a different tack myself. I’d take my Of course, any line serving Bree would need prototypes from the imagination. I can think of at least bimodal coaches: one half double-decked to carry large three imaginary lands whose details have been care- hobbit families, with rounded windows so that their fully sketched out by their creators—all but their rail- passengers would feel at home, and the other half more way systems. And I would be tempted to make up that spaciously furnished to accomodate men. The long-dis- omission. tance trains would doubtless have several types of ac- comodation, for elves and dwarves would have their Once Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took own ideas of comfortable travel. Stations in the Shire returned to the Shire from the War of the Ring, they would be of honest red brick, or perhaps fieldstone in would hardly spend the rest of their days sitting by hillier sections, rounded in the characteristic architec- their firesides. As Greathearts of the Shire, they would tural style of the country, and would be surrounded by certainly be in demand at the Free Fair at Michel Delv- carefully-tended flower-gardens. The setting would be ing; and surely their counsel would be sought by the completed with model hobbit-holes, country inns with King at Minas Tirith. Eagles may be indispensable in carefully lettered signboards, and figurines of small folk emergencies, but they can hardly be depended upon to riding sturdy ponies. serve as a rapid-transit system. A little steam-powered A railway-network in Middle Earth would hard- railroad—no massive, articulated behemoths (though ly be restricted to the Shire. I can imagine an Elvish monorail gliding through the forest of Lothlorien, and box Cafe. The very name of the Side-Track Tap implies a narrow-gauge underground line through the Mines of the existence of a railway line through the village. Moria. Try as I might, I can’t picture a railway through I like to think of the Minneapolis & Lake Wobe- Fangorn forest—the ents would hardly permit it—but gon as a home-town effort at preservlng rail service on I have no trouble visualising orcish transportation: the a never-prosperous branch of some overbuilt granger comparison with the IRT at rush hour is too obvious. road. The same train that hauls a couple of boxcars of Perhaps I’d best stick to the hills and meadows of the Powdermilk Biscuits might carry the Sons of Canute to Shire after all. a lodge convention in the Twin Cities, or start Barbara Bunsen on her way to another term at the University Another bucolic land needing improved trans- of Minnesota. But I’ll concede that I might be wrong portation is Islandia. In Austin Tappan Wright’s sprawling in picturing it as a steam railroad. The M&LW might novel, land transport is limited to horses and wagons, be an impecunious interurban line, with big dark-green while small sailing vessels link the coastal provinces. In cars rumbling along Main Street in front of the green The Islar, Mark Saxton’s sequel to Islandia, we learn of mobile home housing Bob’s Bank, or wobblinq through the new monorail lire, linking the Islandian capital (“The Norwegian bachelor farmers’ wheatfields as it makes City”), the university town of Reeves, and the border its way toward St. Cloud. It might even have degener- region of The Frays. Presumably a monorail would be ated into a sort of Toonerville trolley, bringing crowds less disruptive of the Islandian way of life than would in its rickety cars on still summer nights out to the old a more conventional railway; Islandians seem to have Wally “Hard Hands” Bunsen Memorial Field to see the learned how to integrate the twentieth century into Whippets play. their traditional culture. But it would still seem char- acteristic of the place for a network of meter-gauge I may yet come back from a hobby shop with an country railways to carry a mixed traffic into the hin- Ambroid “One in Five Thousand” kit and a few lengths terland of Storn and Winder. (And what a picture The of Atlas SnapTrack. But don’t expect my cellar to sprout City’s Union Terminal would make!) any clone of the Boston & Maine: there are more fitting Which brings up the possibility that Islandia’s tracks to be laid by a fantasy fan. railways wouldn’t be nearly as interesting to the mod- eller as the country itself. Austin Wright was an avid amateur naturalist, and careful descriptions of topogra- phy and wildlife abound in his novel. (Much of the mate- rial cut when his voluminous manuscript was prepared for publication dealt with Islandian geology.) While the sketch-maos he drew are difficult to read (especially in the Signet paperback edition), Wright’s word-pictures of Islandian farmsteads and townships give a vivid por- trayal of a distinctive landscape. And The City, with its brightly-colored buildings, its network of roof gardens and skyways, and the variegated fleet of two-masted coastwise sailing-ships crowding its harbor, would be a marvellous challenge to the imaginative modeller.

The rural branch line with its daily mixed train is the sort of thing most modellers have in mind when they create their idealized portraits of American rail- roading. And where would such a picture be more ap- propriate than in that archetypical middle-American small town—Lake Wobegon, Minnesota? Any regular listener to “A Prairie Home Companion” knows the names of Lake Wobegon’s landmarks: Skoglund’s Five and Dime, Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery, the Chatter-